Paul W. Brandt-Rauf, M.D., Sc.D., Dr.P.H., Professor and Chairman

Dr. Brandt-Rauf's research concentrates on the role of oncoprotein products in environmental carcinogenesis. The alteration of cellular oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes plays an important role in the carcinogenic process, and the effects of these altered genes is mediated by their oncoprotein products. Dr. Brandt-Rauf's research addresses three aspects of oncoprotein products in carcinogenesis:

1. Structure-function studies of oncoproteins, using conformational energy analysis and molecular dynamics, to relate changes in oncogenic activity of these proteins to changes in their structure;

2. Mechanistic studies of the pathway of action of oncoproteins in cells to explain how altered activity of these proteins produce cellular transformation and to develop oncoprotein-specific interventions to abort this action for use as chemotherapeutic/chemoprophylactic agents;

3. Molecular epidemiologic studies of oncoprotein expression in individuals with cancer or at-risk for the development of cancer due to environmental exposures and of gene-environment interactions that affect this expression.

Major goals of this research are early cancer detection, based on oncoprotein analysis, and cancer prevention, based on oncoprotein-specific interventions.

Publications:

Do TN, Rosal RV, Drew L, Raffo AJ, Michl J, Pincus MR, Friedman FK, Cassai N, Szmulewicz J, Sidhu G, Fine RL, Brandt-Rauf PW (2003). Preferential induction of necrosis in human breast cancer cells by a p53 peptide derived from the MDM2 binding site. Oncogene 22:1431-1444.

Brandt-Rauf PW, Luo JC, Cheng TJ, Du CL, Wang JD, Rosal R, Do T, Marion MJ (2002). Molecular biomarkers and epidemiologic risk assessment. J Hum Ecol Risk Assessment 8:1295-1301.

Kanovsky JM, Raffo A, Drew L, Rosal R, Do T, Friedman FK, Rubinstein P, Visser J, Robinson R, Brandt-Rauf PW, Michl J, Fine RL, Pincus MR (2001). Peptides from the amino terminal mdm-2-binding domain of p53, designed from conformational analysis, are selectively cytotoxic to transformed cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:12438-12443.

Chen JM, Rosal R, Smith S, Pincus MR, Brandt-Rauf PW (2001). Common conformational effects of p53 mutations. J Protein Chem 20:101-105.

Ford JG, Li Y, O'Sullivan M, Demopoulos R, Garte S, Taioli E, Brandt-Rauf PW (2000). Glutathione-S-transferase M1 polymorphism and lung cancer risk in African-Americans. Carcinogenesis 21:1971-1975.